Part One

"I haven't enjoyed a rant this much since Thoreau," Beth said. "We need people stirring up the way we think about things."

My best friend, Beth, was trying to talk me into forming a Larry study group with her. His Web site--www.thegospelaccordingtolarry.com--received hundreds of hits a day, mostly from teens and college students. No one knew Larry's identity, and that conjecture alone was the source of several companion Web sites. Many kids at school were fans, but Beth was rabid.

"Josh, I know neither one of us has ever joined a club in our life," she said. "But that's precisely why we should."

I tried to listen to the details of her story, I really did, but there is something about Beth's mouth that gets in the way of paying attention to its contents. She often wore a certain brown lipstick and outlined the edges of her lips with this pencil she carried in her bag. Every time she talked, it was like this pale chocolate snowcone staring up at me, waiting to be eaten. I've been in love with her since sixth grade, but she didn't have a clue.

"I'll help you with the club," I said. "But just so the two of us can bag all the meetings and laugh at the other people who show up."

She wasn't amused. "This isn't a joke. Someone is finally talking about the things I've been saying all along, and I think it's important to help spread the word. Are you in or are you out?"

"Of course I'm in. I can't let you do this on your own. Next thing I know you'll be running for prom queen or something."

She punched me in the arm, her usual form of affection. "Hey, why don't you help me at the store this afternoon? We're having a run on shovels."

Beth's father's hardware store had been our work/tree house/summer camp since grammar school. Sorting the nuts and bolts, counting the different lightbulbs, shoveling the woodchips into wheelbarrows had never seemed like a job to either of us. The small store prided itself on carrying everything a homeowner could need, but for a loner like me it was a nonthreatening way to be a part of the community without too much social pressure. I told Beth I'd meet her there at four.

For a brief moment I pretended we were a couple, not snowbound outside Boston, but romping through the Caribbean surf--tan and in love. My fantasy shattered, however, when she waved goodbye and headed across the cafeteria to Todd Terrific--a new jock she was obsessed with. Can someone please explain to me how this preoccupation with dopey athletes happens even to headstrong young women who work in hardware stores and score 1350s on their SATs? Beth, what are you doing to me? Life was cruel and unfair--what did this Larry guy have to say about that?

The rest of school went by like the movie Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray wakes up and every day is the same, down to the last boring details. Even when something new did happen--fire drill, substitute teacher--it was still just a giant yawn in the storyline. To keep myself amused during study hall, I invented a new alphabet based on the sense of smell.

At home that night, I booted up my laptop and logged on. I checked my e-mail, then the small portfolio of stocks my mother left me when she died. I made one last online stop: to Larry. I wondered if Beth was doing the same thing at the same time--an unrequited cyberdate.

The Larry logo filled the screen--a peace sign with a dove, a floppy disk, a planet, and a plug inside each of its four sections. I scrolled down through several photographs to comments people had written that day: puljohn posted a new link to Adbusters. Toejam ranted about Larry's last sermon, calling it...

 

Seventeen-year-old Joshua Swenson espouses an anti-consumerism, anti-materialism message through the mouthpiece of "Larry" on the Internet. His sermons include researched statistics and influences from Thoreau. When his ideas spawn a national movement and Josh is subsequently discovered, his carefully constructed world falls apart as friends and family try to reconcile the Josh they know with his new personality as Larry. Josh too must confront the difference between his neat philosophies and his tendency to bottle up the most important things he has to say. Jesse Eisenberg gives an excellent performance as a sincere, reflective teenager. His fast reading pace and clipped sentence endings detract only slightly from the narration. J.M.S. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

 

Kirkus Reviews, Starred...

"The voice is clear, the ending satisfying. The readers will eat this one up."

 

School Library Journal, Starred...

"A terrific read with a credible and lovable main character."

 

The Gospel According to Larry by Janet Tashjian
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